Talent Management Strategy - Essay Example

Man has been created on the best of patterns amongst the living beings known so far. Every individual is a respective personality in his own self and possesses a talent specific to him only. It is the possession and specification of this talent only that enables each individual to prove his mettle in the huge population of the human race. Inevitably, thus, it is the talent within an individual only that drives it through phases of success throughout his entire life. Since organizations are based upon the individuals they comprise of, therefore it is often believed that it is the talent within the individuals of an organization that groom the organization as a whole. Thus it may also be inferred that the better talented individuals an organization is comprised of, the better chances it has of excelling in its respective domain. Often it is observed that corporate environments are more goal specific and outcome oriented. It should however not be neglected that the path to the accomplishment of the aspired goals is the actual key to success. Treading this path with insight and taking care of all the factors that emerge within it gives organizations a smooth sailing to the target location. MAIN COMPONENTS OF TALENT MANAGEMENT STRATEGY Organizations term the recruiting and handling of talented individuals as the most challenging task for an organizational setup. The better the employees of an organization get suited to the structural needs of the setup, the better it is for the growth of that particular corporate environment. This adoption and integration is often termed as talent management. “A major contributor is obviously your employees. Aligning the organization’s business strategy with its workforce is called talent management, and it involves aligning the right person with the right role with the right tools.” (Shelley, 2011) It is imperative that a specific approach should be adopted that would safeguard the needs of talented employees and would also harness their talents for the progressiveness of the organizational setup as a whole. Following discussion narrates a few strategically inevitable steps that may be termed as components of the talent management strategy. The progressive execution of these components assists the organization in treading towards leading endeavors. Figure 1 is a graphical representation of the Talent Management Strategy. Figure 1: Integrated Approach to Talent Management Strategy. ( Accenture Seven Imperatives for Achieving Dynamic Supply Chains. Copyright © 2011 ) Planning Employee Assignments Strategically It is essentially the first ever step in the making of any organizational set up that the organizational goals and strategy should be developed. Employees who possess just the right talent for the organizational goals and the positions where there integration would be suited best should be identified. The identifications of the roles and individuals may reveal the need for the induction of more talented individuals with respect to the emerging needs. And in order to cover any gaps that may be present in the current setup. Harnessing Talent The identification, polishing and rightful embedding of the talent existing within an organization is a very peculiar task indeed. If deficient in the required skills, talent hunt may need to be generated in order to bring in individuals that possess just the required talents. Sometimes the talent within the existing employees may be overshadowed by the tasks that they are presently assigned with. It is therefore recommended that the talent hunt should be done both within and outside the parent organization. Managing Performances The key concern of revolutionizing talent management with respect to every individual organization is that the employees’ performances should be managed in line with the strategy of the organization itself. Employees’ Motivation, Career development and succession planning are few other modules that are integral parts of the strategy. STORES ‘R’ US APPROACH TO TALENT MANAGEMENT There are a number of factors that need to be incorporated if Talent Management is to be embedded within the organization Stores R Us. The Present Scenario The current scenario narrates that Stores R Us is a chain of stores that has many branches worldwide. Starting from USA it has spread its wings throughout the world. Its sublet in the UK has been running on for about 12 years now. The progressive results obtained from stores all over the world have been very encouraging and have eventually led to the company gaining a leading edge over its competitors worldwide. However, the UK division of the same international chain did not seem to prosper on the pattern of its sister sites. There may have been a number of reasons behind the limited performance of the UK units however analysis was carried out by a Human Resource consultancy firm and it was revealed that it were some issues relative to the non-managerial staff employees that were the trigger. The issues got raised even though it was on record that the organization offered many benefits to its employees. These included successive incremental benefits to the employees (which accumulated to larger amounts) for the employees which retained their services with the company for longer period of times. Additive advantages such as the maintenance of same uniform for all the employees of the store whether whatever level they may etcetera were some of the steps that were taken by the Stores R Us organization to provide attractive environment for its employees. However they still had problems with the owners which were resulting in successive increase in number of complaints being made by the consumers. The problems that the employees suffered with were as follows: Target oriented environment Monotonous environment Hierarchical and Bureaucratic Environment Distinction of ‘You’ and ‘We’ among the managerial and the staff employment line. The neglect ion of the ‘say’ of the staff. Staff subjected to Short notice Shift changes PROPOSED STRATEGY Owing to the above mentioned circumstances and increasing competition from competitors it was highly recommended that a talent management strategy should immediately be deployed within the organization’s UK chapter so that the issue could be resolved. The following modules should be incorporated within the Stores R Us environment: Strategic Deployment of Employees Employees like to be accredited for their jobs. The first thing that should be taken care of while hiring employees within the organization is that their comprehensive interviews should be taken. Any specific organizational skills or skills relative to their specific talents may be witnessed while being interviewed. These skills should not be neglected and though they may not be hired with respect to that talent at that point, it could still come in handy later on during the employment. Rotation of Job Monotony of tasks and atmosphere can often be demoralizing for individuals. It is therefore essential that the concept of rotation of job should be introduced within the organization. Though the level of the employees should remain the same, but their jobs should differ for certain amounts of time. This enables employees to seek different target goals from time to time thus saving them from becoming prone to monotony and incentive less environment. Learning and Motivation The providence of opportunities for the employees by organizing learning workshops and talent grooming exercises is a great practice that Stores R Us should incorporate in order to shape up the talents within the existing employees. The thought of grooming oneself up and excelling in the organizational environment would also help the employees to focus on personal and organizational grooming and targets. Stores R Us should change the culture of its organization through the Motivational workshops mentioned above. Encouraging employees to take risks within themselves and make them aspire for better positions within the organization would help the employees get motivated and they would focus on grooming themselves up. This would, definitely result in the upward progression of the organization as a whole. It also implies that when the employees would see that their progress is a building block for the entire organization they would realize the worth of their role. Risk Toleration Stores R Us would have to take the chance of tolerating risk while embedding the talent management strategy. There is always a chance of error whenever decision making is involved. Thus, even though the employees may have undergone learning lessons and may have proven their talents in the grooming workshops, risk factor would still be involved in deploying them upon newer positions within the organization. But this would all be one of the necessary steps of implementing talent management since without it, it would not be possible to keep talented employees retained and the achievement of organizational goals would also not be possible. Transparency This module of the talent management strategy specifically addresses the foremost problem being faced by Stores R Us. As mentioned earlier the non- managerial employees who have spent more than a year working at the Store had started losing their incentive in their jobs due to monotony and feeling of being devalued. The commitment to the cause of the organization was fading away for these employees. The concept of transparency of Talent hunting and management re ignites the feeling of motivation for attaining targets since every employee feels he has a chance to prove his talent and it would definitely contribute as a building block for the Stores R Us Organization. Decision Process Decision making should not be kept restricted to the managerial staff only. For Stores R Us it is essential that they should pool in decision making tips from all their employees keeping in mind that each one of them is a talented individual in his own self. A proposed decision strategy could be penned down and then put on notice board of the organization. Opinions about it may then be sought via opinion polls or a suggestion box in which those employees interested in contributing to the decision may coin out their suggestions about matters. Thus, the eventual decision making arena would not be restricted to the extreme managerial end only but would involve the entire organization’s employees within it. Talent Pool- Entry, Persistence, Chance! The talent pool within the Stores R Us Uk chapter should have the following few characteristic features: The talent pool should be wide enough to accommodate employees on a regular basis. Since every individual is talented in a specific respect, the pool should be open to additions. The size of the talent pool should be expandable so as to accommodate all the talented individuals that are part of the Store’s set up. Temporary definition structure of the talent pool would be handier than persistent rigid definitions. With periodically changing definitions every individual would know he would get a chance of becoming a part of it without having the sense of losing their value when getting out of the circle. Development Path and Focus Stores R Us could develop a focus of approach with respect to its organization. The focus should primarily be on the individual talents of the employees, how they harness their development. It should then be bought in line with the strategy of the Store itself focusing on the overall development of the macro environment. TALENT MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR STORES ‘R’ US. The globally rising needs for the implementation of talent management and the current rate at which competition is arising in the corporate arena it is essential that a plan should formally be devised for talent management. Planning for talent management is the initial step in the series of steps that need to be taken in order to implement talent management. With respect to figure 2 shown below it can be observed that Talent Strategy and Planning is the very first step in the implementation of the strategy. Figure 2: Integrated Talent Management. (Bersin and Associates, 2010) The Talent Management plan overlaps with the human resource plan of the Stores R’ Us environment. It should be kept in mind that the current proposed talent management plan is designed keeping in mind the current economic situation world over. Increasing economic and monetary problems are being faced by not only government but this effect is also trickling down to the organizational and eventually employee level. Leveled Plan It is proposed that the talent management plan should be trickled down into the organization by classifying it at first in the managerial level, the departmental level and eventually at the individual level in the form of individual plans. HR Planning is the foremost step in planning out talent management. It would involve assessment of the following aspects: Employees’ demand’s forecasting Analysis of present employees The internal supply to be planned The external supply should be planed. It is proposed that the current level of employees would prove to be better off at the managerial levels once they have been through the talent detection procedures. Their appointment into their new roles would enable their motivation to take the entire ‘Stores R’ Us’ UK branch along. The talent management planning enables individuals to prosper and to move on from the transactional level to the business partner level. Since planning for the said shift involves the prosperity of the organization as well it eventually results in the development of the store overall. SUMMARY: Talent management is a global need that every organization must implement. The fast paced changes in the corporate arena and the economic crisis being faced the world over have affected each and every corporate organization. For corporate environments suffering from problems pertaining to the current employees it is suggested that talent management strategy should be adopted for them in order to uplift their organizational environment and thus the entire business as a whole. In order to demonstrate the aspects of the talent management strategy the organizational set up of the Stores R’ Us chain of stores was chosen. The UK chapter of the chain of stores was going down in sales as opposed to its sister stores in the rest of the world. HR analysis revealed that the senior transactional level employees had several problems. This was resulting in the dissatisfaction of the customers and the loosing of the customer base. It was therefore proposed that a talent management plan that best suited the strategic aspects of the Store environment should be introduced so as to revamp the setup and motivate the employees. CONCLUSION Conclusively it may well be said that Talent Management Strategy should be held as important to an organizational setup as are the overall goals of the organization. It is owing to the fact that the best utilization of an organizations employees, with respect to their individual suited talents, eventually results in cost effective and profit giving business strategies. REFERENCES: Accenture 2011, Integrated approach to talent management stratefy, digital image, Accenture Seven Imperatives for Achieving Dynamic Supply Chains. , accessed 6 April 2012, . Bersin and Associates 2010. Integrated Talent Management, digital image, A new talent management Framework accessed 6 April 2012, Moore, S. 2011. Understand the Components of Talent Management. Bloomware. Accessed 3rd April 2012, < http://blog.bloomware.com/2011/01/12/understand-the-components-of-talent-management/> Lubitsh, G. Smith, I 2007, ‘Talent Management: a Strategic Imperative’, The Ashridge Journal. Lewis, R. & Heckman, R., 2006. Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, 16(2), p.139-154. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053482206000271. Heene, A. & Dentchev, N.A., 2010. Strategic Perspective on Talent Management. Management, p.1-16. Available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/rug/rugwps/04-253.html. Creelman, D., 2004. What is Talent Management? TerraForum Consultores, (January), p.1-3. Available at: http://www.taleo.com/researcharticle/what-talent-management. Read More